By Pepe Escobar
Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentzia – a heir to those like Braudel, Sartre, Deleuze and Foucault who dazzled successive young Cold War generations from the West down to the East.
The first nugget concerning his latest book, La Défaite de L’Occident (“The Defeat of the West”) is the minor miracle of actually being published last week in France, right within the NATO sphere: a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data, blowing up the whole Russophobia edifice erected around the “aggression” by “Tsar” Putin.
At least some sectors of strictly oligarch-controlled corporate media in France simply could not ignore Todd this time around for several reasons. Most of all because he was the first Western intellectual, already in 1976, to have predicted the fall of the USSR in his book La Chute Finale, with his research based on Soviet infant mortality rates.
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Another key reason was his 2002 book Apres L’Empire, a sort of preview of the Empire’s Decline and Fall published a few months before Shock & Awe in Iraq.
Now Todd, in what he has defined as his last book (“I closed the circle”) allows himself to go for broke and meticulously depict the defeat not only of the US but of the West as a whole – with his research focusing in and around the war in Ukraine.
Considering the toxic NATOstan environment where Russophobia and cancel culture reign supreme, and every deviation is punishable, Todd has been very careful not to frame the current process as a Russian victory in Ukraine (although that’s implied in everything he describes, ranging from
several indicators of social peace to the overall stability of the “Putin system”, which is “a product of the history of Russia, and not the work of one man”).
Rather, he focuses on the key reasons that have led to the West’s downfall. Among them: the end of the nation-state; de-industrialization (which explains NATO’s deficit in producing weapons for Ukraine); the “degree zero” of the West’s religious matrix, Protestantism; the sharp increase of mortality rates in the US (much higher than in Russia), along with suicides and homicides; and the supremacy of an imperial nihilism expressed by the obsession with Forever Wars.
The Collapse of Protestantism
Todd methodically analyses, in sequence, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Germany, Britain, Scandinavia and finally The Empire. Let’s focus on what would be the 12 Greatest Hits of his remarkable exercise.
1. At the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022, the combined GDP of Russia and Belarus was only 3.3% of the combined West (in this case the NATO sphere plus Japan and South Korea). Todd is amazed how these 3.3% capable of producing more weapons than the whole Western colossus not only are winning the war but reducing dominant notions of the “neoliberal political economy” (GDP rates) to shambles.
2. The “ideological solitude” and “ideological narcissism” of the West – incapable of understanding, for instance, how “the whole Muslim world seems to consider Russia as a partner rather than an adversary”.
3. Todd eschews the notion of “Weberian states” – evoking a delicious compatibility of vision between Putin and US realpolitik practitioner John Mearsheimer. Because they are forced to survive in an environment where only power relations matters, states are now acting as “Hobbesian agents.” And that brings us to the Russian notion of a nation-state, focused on “sovereignty”: the capacity of a state to independently define its internal and external policies, with no foreign interference whatsoever.
4. The implosion, step by step, of WASP culture, which led, “since the 1960s”, to “an empire deprived of a center and a project, an essentially military organism managed by a group without culture (in the anthropological sense)”. This is Todd defining the US neocons.
5. The US as a “post-imperial” entity: just a shell of military machinery deprived of an intelligence-driven culture, leading to “accentuated military expansion in a phase of massive contraction of its industrial base”. As Todd stresses, “modern war without industry is an oxymoron”.
6. The demographic trap: Todd shows how Washington strategists “forgot that a state whose population enjoys a high educational and technological level, even if it is decreasing, does not lose its military power”. That’s exactly the case of Russia during the Putin years.
7. Here we reach the crux of Todd’s argument: his post-Max Weber reinterpretation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published a little over a century ago, in 1904/1905: “If Protestantism was the matrix for the ascension of the West, its death, today, is the cause of the disintegration and defeat.”
Todd clearly defines how the 1688 English “Glorious Revolution”, the 1776 American Declaration of Independence and the 1789 French Revolution were the true pillars of the liberal West. Consequently, an expanded “West” is not historically “liberal”, because it also engineered “Italian fascism, German Nazism and Japanese militarism”.
In a nutshell, Todd shows how Protestantism imposed universal literacy on the populations it controlled, “because all faithful must directly access the Holy Scriptures. A literate population is capable of economic and technological development. The Protestant religion modeled, by accident, a superior, efficient workforce.” And it is in this sense that Germany was “at the heart of Western development”, even if the Industrial Revolution took place in England.
Todd’s key formulation is undisputable: “The crucial factor of the ascension of the West was Protestantism’s attachment to alphabetization.”
Moreover Protestantism, Todd stresses, is twice at the heart of the history of the West: via the educational and economic drive – with fear of damnation and the need to feel chosen by God engendering a work ethic and a strong, collective morality – and via the idea that Men are unequal (remember the White Man’s Burden).
The collapse of Protestantism could not but destroy the work ethic to the benefit of mass greed: that is, neoliberalism.
Transgenderism and the Cult of the Fake
8. Todd’s sharp critique of the spirit of 1968 would merit a whole new book. He refers to “one of the great illusions of the 1960s – between Anglo-American sexual revolution and May 68 in France”; “to believe that the individual would be greater if freed from the collective”. That led to an inevitable debacle: “Now that we are free, en masse, from metaphysical beliefs, foundational and derived, communist, socialist or nationalist, we live the experience of the void.” And that’s how we became “a multitude of mimetic midgets who do not dare to think by themselves – but reveal themselves as capable of intolerance as the believers of ancient times.”
9. Todd’s brief analysis of the deeper meaning of transgenderism completely shatters the Church of Woke – from New York to the EU sphere, and will provoke serial fits of rage. He shows how transgenderism is “one of the flags of this nihilism that now defines the West, this drive to destroy, not just things and humans but reality.”
And there’s an added analytical bonus: “The transgender ideology says that a man may become a woman, and a woman may become a man. This is a false affirmation, and in this sense, close to the theoretical heart of Western nihilism.” It gets worse, when it comes to the geopolitical ramifications. Todd establishes a playful mental and social connection between this cult of the fake and the Hegemon’s wobbly behavior in international relations. Example: the Iranian nuclear dear clinched under Obama becoming a hardcore sanctions regime under Trump. Todd: “American foreign policy is, in its own way, gender fluid.”
10. Europe’s “assisted suicide”. Todd reminds us how Europe at the start was the Franco-German couple. Then after the 2007/2008 financial crisis, that turned into “a patriarchic marriage, with Germany as a dominant spouse not listening to his companion anymore”. The EU abandoned any pretention of defending Europe’s interests – cutting itself off from energy and trade with its partner Russia and sanctioning itself. Todd identifies, correctly, the Paris-Berlin axis replaced by the London-Warsaw-Kiev axis: that was “the end of Europe as an autonomous geopolitical actor”. And that happened only 20 years after the joint opposition by France-Germany to the neocon war on Iraq.
11. Todd correctly defines NATO by plunging into “their unconscious”: “We note that that its military, ideological and psychological mechanism does not exist to protect Western Europe, but to control it.”
12. In tandem with several analysts in Russia, China, Iran and among independents in Europe, Todd is sure that the US obsession – since the 1990s – to cut off Germany from Russia will lead to failure: “Sooner or later, they will collaborate, as “their economic specializations define them as complementary”. The defeat in Ukraine will open the path, as a “gravitational force” reciprocally seduces Germany and Russia.
Before that, and unlike virtually any Western “analyst” across the mainstream NATOstan sphere, Todd understands that Moscow is set to win against the whole of NATO, not merely Ukraine, profiting from a window of opportunity identified by Putin in early 2022. Todd bets on a window of 5 years, that is, an endgame by 2027. It’s enlightening to compare with Defense Minister Shoigu, on the record, last year: the SMO will end by 2025.
Whatever the deadline, inbuilt in all this is a total Russia victory – with the winner dictating all terms. No negotiations, no ceasefire, no frozen conflict – as the Hegemon is now desperate spinning.
Davos enacts The Triumph of the West
Todd’s ample merit, so evident in the book, is to use history and anthropology to take Western society’s false consciousness to the divan. And that’s how, focusing for instance in the study of very specific family structures in Europe, he manages to explain reality in a way that totally escapes the brainwashed collective West masses lingering under turbo-neoliberalism.
It goes without saying that Todd’s reality-based book will not be a hit among the Davos elites. What’s happening this week in Davos has been immensely enlightening. Everything is out in the open.
From all the usual suspects – the toxic EU Medusa von der Leyen; NATO’s warmongering Stoltenberg; BlackRock, JP Morgan and assorted honchos shaking hands with their sweaty sweatshirt toy in Kiev – the “Triumph of the West” message is monolithic.
War is Peace. Ukraine is not (italics mine) losing and Russia is not winning. If you disagree with us – on anything – you will be censored for “hate speech”. We want the New World Order – whatever you lowly peasants think – and we want it now.
And if all fails, a pre-fabricated Disease X is comin’ to get you.
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Comments
22 responses to “Pepe Escobar: How the West Was Defeated”
The west defeats itself.
That’s all too complicated for me, and I doubt there’s anyone who can find an organized, complete, and consistent thread through the whole debacle we call Western Civilization.
But I do see a very evident Conquest of the West unfolding now before our eyes. It’s one that started 2500 years ago, so it’s much longer than the one the Mongols tried and failed at. And it was done by a much less boisterous group of people that no one expected: the Jewish Tribe.
From the start of their diaspora in Babylonia, through their move Westward, to hole up and gather reserves within the Kazar population, then through to their populating Europe, and then full circle to the Conquest of Palestine, the Jewish Tribe, including the Israeli Jews, who have erased their identity as diaspora Jews, and the rest of diaspora Jews in the USA, UK, Canada, and Germany, have now sufficient control of Western governments to compel those governments to commit genocide along with the Genocide of Israel.
What an amazing accomplishment. And what more proof do you need to understand such a simple trail of action and intent? Yes, it took 2500 years to do it, but by damn they really did it.
Now what?
Here in Australia, my Federal Government is also purely concerned with CONTROL of its citizens, NOT “protecting their Liberties”. Both sides of Parliament are attempting a Bill to deny any Smaller Party funding, so as to drown all dissent. Oz is a triangle of Elites: the Labor/Liberal (faux Left/Right) and the Corporatocracy revolving door. Then UTTER CORRUPTION in both the State & Territories & even EVERY SINGLE LOCAL COUNCIL.
I came across a word new to me in the sentence:
“Todd’s key formulation is undisputable: “The crucial factor of the ascension of the West was Protestantism’s attachment to alphabetization.””
So I looked for a definition.
Here it is.
Alphabetization.
“to arrange in alphabetical order”
and I thought it had something to do with world exploration, militarism, colonisation and exploitation of science through industrialisation.
Well, we just learn something new every day.
All based on the alphabet…no?
Dear Walt, I believe there was an issue with the choice of words, basically Pepe used an incorrect word. “Alphabetização” is the Portuguese (Pepe’s mother tongue) word for literacy.
Marcos
I only wish I could read French. As a blogger with an special interest in history and politics it confirms many of my views…. very reassuring. It might be a while before we see an English version.
Biden, Blinken and several other mindless ones have never been in a war. BUT, they seem awfully happy to make war. I have no idea what Joe—- said to be a once kind Irish boy—why he suddenly made himself beholden to Netanyahu. And along with the Trump personage—those who avoid war are those who want to lead—but like Trump never ever want to get their hands dirty.
As near as I can tell, America is being led by quite a few stupid ones—and Trump on the GOP side, equally able to get the brain dead to follow, as those who follow Biden usually have no power in this world and truly enjoy the often incompetent men who rule at the top.
There must be some true leadership somewhere——Come out, come out wherever you are—PLEASE—As we have just the one planet–and why so many seem to want tp blow things up is and will be an unanswered question to those with inquiring minds.
“I have no idea what Joe—- said to be a once kind Irish boy—why he suddenly made himself beholden to Netanyahu.”
Wow, where has your mind been for the last couple of decades? This is no “sudden” occurrence. See my post above. If you have a better explanation, please let me know. And here’s the smoking gun, the data, the proof:
https://articlebiz.com/article/1052218096-the-jewish-lobby
Ah—you see Biden was wrong with the bizarro Clarence Thomas too— and Biden’s dissing of Anita Hill, but now that Biden has totally gifting another 14 million to Israel—-ONE HAS TO WONDER—why is Biden ( and Blinken too) why are they more concerned about Israel than about what America needs? WE THE PEOPLE are more important than those 2 fakers—who are more than happy to FORGET the WE the People
Please read carefully my introduction; every article in this issue of ICH can easily be directed into one single and straight direction, meaning the present dominant hegemon, the US Empire. Supporting the US regime for its own agenda, we must include the true center of World Zionist power, is the House of Rothschild conveniently located in merry old England. The public affairs of the world’s elite are run from Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is based. They not only have a formal yearly meeting with all current leaders under tutelage, but also impromptu reunions such as the one generated recently, to plan future strategies in the coming event of the demise of Ukraine as a national entity at the hands of Russia. Therefore using the necessary historic background in this article, is crystal clear to me that the unavoidable collapse of the US hegemon for many obvious reasons, will deal a mortal blow to the forces of evil. The in process reset of the present world order by the Russia-China entente plus present and future associates, is unstoppable unless an End of Days WWIII takes place. This dangerous prospect was never present during the previous British Empire that ended officially in 1945. I figure that new technologies and an enterprising American style, is responsible for this turn of events. However be as it may, the demise of the present world order is certainly coming sooner that many people predict, since most analysts fail to consider the critical true state of the US society and regime as a whole. All in all things don’t look too bad in my humble opinion.
Zylensky is a grabbing little idiot—– Ukraine will fall( due to the grabbing little idiot). There is no need to send money there, as AMERICANS are losing jobs, lacking the affordability of food and a place to sleep. Send aid to your own people, Biden. Israel will fall on its own and sending more money there is a travesty against the American people and a genocide against the Palestinians.
As you could read above Gloria, I feel that the equation is easily solved in its simple terms.
Non other than martyred MLK Jr. said without any ambiguity all those years ago:
‘The greatest purveyor of violence in the world, my own country the United States of America’. A few weeks before the US regime assassinated JFK, he said very clearly:
‘There is a plot to enslave every man, woman and child in this country, and before my term in this exalted office is over, I will put and end to it’, no wonder he was eliminated. Additionally, a wise Iranian religious leader told us many year ago ‘The source of all evil in the world is in the United States of America’, true words were never spoken. The explanation to all our problems is very simple if you have the guts to admit it.
scrdmgl, can you please provide documentation that substantiates your claim that JFK said that? As far as I know, there is no such evidence, and in fact, there’s much evidence to prove it’s a false conspiracy theory. For instance, see the link below.
Nowadays, we must be very careful what we copy on the web and report it as fact. When we do that, our own credibility soon comes into question. Read the article below and give me your response. Thanks.
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-jfk-fake-quote-conspiracy-theory-672501330708
Please keep in mind that conspiracy theories are mostly ‘anything’ that differs the official regime’s version of events. As far as JFK is concerned he was no revolutionary, but he still qualified as a bona fide enemy of the regime that killed him for good reason. Just weeks before he was killied he made a spech at the American University that became his death warrant for its content and pronuntiations about the true nature of the US government. Most of his famous quotes come from there, but typing his name and quotes will show you the one that I mentioned and many others. Keep in mind that aside the sacrilegious and hypocritical veneration of his person, he was an obvious enemy targeted for elimination for that very reason, unless you believe on the magic bullet theory and lone assassin bs.
Walt, to me, Pepe is a puzzle. Sometimes I come across insightful articles by him, but many times he seems to be talking to himself. This is an example of his abominable writing style, as if he has no concern for the reader.
How much longer can western “civilization” tolerate President Biden? His only intention is to expand an ever expanding war zone. The American population, unfocused and distracted, will be the last ones to realize the world is in flames, alarmed by the sudden rise in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. If there is a lesson to be learned it is that 8 billion people cannot inhabit Earth without formulating world war.
Rest assured that Biden (rather whoever is handling a bumbling senile man) is supported and encouraged, by the world’s elites (WEF in Davos) and not acting on their own initiative.
As if that was not enough, the World Zionist cabal aka The House of Rothschild based in England, is helping along with their own agenda of world domination. Sound like conspiracy theory doesn’t it? unfortunately is true since America’s business are not run in a vacuum but in good company. Don’t believe me, check it out.
Back in the 1960s I listened to a philosopher say that the US was entering an era of “purposelessness”. Meaning, so I interpreted, that people were beginning to lose their cultural identities. Now, 60 years later I can easily observe a very disoriented culture in the US where people seem to have lost their sense of identity and try to retrieve it with tattoos and pickup trucks. Quality control in production of everything from cars to aircraft seem to have diminished and the government has turned into a plutocracy of genocidal whackos completely out of control while taxpayers/voters don’t have a clue about the erosion of the culture. There are too many reasons for it to discuss here.
Hello Woopy;
Yes the world does go through such odd changes. BUT, just as the planet has gone through so many changes—-people do too. America seems to have lost a sense of purpose in everything from honesty to realizing that all things do not come to all people. People need to realize that money is not the aim of humanity, but that kindness and actually listening to people can make such a difference in so many lives. We all live on the same planet, and we all suffer from sadness, sometimes evilness—but in spite of it all, being ourselves and continuing to believe in the goodness of people can make a big difference to the entire planet. And in that sense , we can all have ideas and skills which cam make the future a much better place.
Another philosopher from 60 years ago, Carl Rogers, believed that people’s psychics were formed from their worldly experiences and that the incredible increases in mental stimuli at that time was entering their learning spheres was diluting and confusing the population maybe even disintegrating the culture. At that time TV was relatively new. Now we have bloated TV disinformation, and an Internet that throws so much information at us that most people don’t have a clue about anything and escape to limbo, tattoos and wasted efforts to find meaningful lives.
Your comments above are easily explained if we consider the Calvinist origins of America and its natural evolution into a world empire. Their motto: ‘Praise the Lord and get rich for whatever means available’. Capitalism at its best I say.